Sailing Teams Ready for National Championships

HANOVER, N.H. — The Intercollegiate Sailing Association’s (ICSA) three national championships, Sperry Top-Sider/ICSA Women’s National Semi-Final and Final Championship, ICSA/APS Team Race National Championship, and the ICSA/Gill Dinghy National Championship commence Wednesday, May 30 with the Women’s event, which will last for four days immediately followed by the Team Race Championship on June 3 and the Dinghy Championship on June 6, each lasting for three days.

Dartmouth will compete in the Women's Championship and the Dinghy Championship. All of the events will be sailed in Club Flying Juniors (CFJs). The racing will take place in Austin, Texas on Lake Travis hosted by the University of Texas Sailing Team and the Austin Yacht. Lake Travis is technically a dammed river surrounded by a hilly and mountainous landscape. The two organizations hosted the National Championships last in 2005 where the competitors enjoyed shifty, but consistent wind speeds around 12-15 mph on clear water for nearly ten days straight. The conditions this year are expected to be similar; although a drought this year has dropped the water level quite a bit. Luckily, the lake is deep and it will not affect the sailing.

WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP
The Women’s Semi-Final Championship begins Wednesday, May 30 with an 8 a.m. report time and first race warning set for 10 a.m. The event begins with a single round robin First Round of qualifying races for the 18 women’s teams who have made it to a semifinal round, but not yet made it to the final
competition round. The Big Green are currently in the semifinal round, looking to qualify for the finals.

The First Round group will race until they complete at least the required number of races (16) for nine teams to join the nine previously qualified Finals teams to compete for the Gerald C. Miller Memorial Trophy. Once the 18 final teams have been determined the Finals racing will commence in a single round robin and continue until June 2.

The Dartmouth women's team placed fifth of 17 teams at the NEISA Women's Championship to qualify for the championship.

DINGHY CHAMPIONSHIP
The ICSA/Gill Dinghy National Championship will commence on June 6 at 8 a.m. for 18 qualified collegiate coed teams. It will be a single round robin of racing scheduled to continue through June 8. The teams will be competing for the Henry A. Morse Memorial Trophy.

The coed team qualified for the Dinghy Championship after placing eighth of 18 teams at the ICSA National Semi-Finals in Annapolis, Md. on May 13.

VIDEO COVERAGEThere will be live media coverage of the regattas, which can be found at 2012nationals.collegesailing.org. Texas will provide daily text and photo updates for each of the regattas. On May 31-June 5, Chris Love Productions will also provide video highlights, with live streaming video coverage of the final days of the ICSA/APS Team Race Championship June 4-5. Video coverage presented by Maclaren.